When Jeff and Susan Armsworthy of Mocksville took their
trash to the dump Saturday, they never expected to find a treasure in the
dumpster. But that’s exactly what they did. “I had backed my truck up, and was
just finishing throwing the trash into the dumpster when we heard this noise,”
Armsworthy said. “I thought it was a toy at first.”

Armsworthy said he looked into the deep dumpster, and saw a load of black
garbage bags under the trash he had just deposited. He said a few seconds later,
he heard the sound again. “I thought the second time it was a puppy,” Armsworthy
said. “I thought, ‘Lord, who could do something like that?’”

Armsworthy said he jumped into the dumpster with his wife and a county employee
and started digging through the trash searching for the source of the noise.
Near the bottom of the dumpster they came across two large plastic bags .
Thinking he had found the source, Armsworthy tore one open, only to have the
carcass of a deceased female Rottweiler mix fall out.

He almost stopped his search until they heard the noise again. “I tore open the
second bag, and there they were. Three dead puppies, and one still wiggling,”
Armsworthy said. “It was all matted and nasty, but it was alive.” Susan, who
works at the Village Way Veterinary Hospital in Hillsdale, brought the animal to
her job to be checked out by Dr. Beth Eubanks. With the exception of worms
commonly found in puppies, Eubanks gave the puppy a clean bill of health. The
puppy found its way into the dump by way of the Davie County Animal Shelter.

Animal Control Officer Robert Cook said he was heart broken about the incident.
The puppies, which were abandoned at the shelter the week before, were scheduled
for euthanasia that morning. Apparently, one of the puppies, while knocked
unconscious by the gas, didn’t inhale enough to be fatal. It appears to have
become conscious while in the dumpster ...